1001 No.37: ‘Left 4 Dead 2’ (2009)

There is a house in Cheltenham Town. It’s called the Jackinov. It has been the ruin of many an undead and man Ross is starting to look like one.

There are a number of ways to spend new years eve. Some people throw a party and others have a quite night in with close friends and family. At UCHG HQ we greeted the new year by heading south and killing zombies. Lots of zombies…

Through out the night and into the small hours of the morning we blasted, hacked, burned and detonated our way through all five campaigns of the apocalyptic masterpiece that is Left 4 Dead 2. Over 600 heads were removed, 10835 zombies were sent back to the grave and yes we are stronger and faster than Moustachio!

But the bloodshed didn’t end there. No sooner had we emerged from the hordes we received word that our good old friend Gnome Chompski was in trouble. He was trapped within the Dark Carnival campaign and needed to be carried to safety. This meant one of the team would need to drop his gun and carry Chompski throughout the remaining four stages of the campaign. This lead to a number of humorous gnome based kills and panicked cries of “leave me! Just get Chompski?”

So here we are, surrounded by severed body parts, saying good-bye to 2009 and staring down both barrels of 2010!

Happy New Year to you all and remember to look out for the jockey!

Well here it is, Christmas Day!

We hope that Father Christmas has come down your chimney and emptied his sack under your tree (dirty bastard).

Christmas Day is a day for giving… and receiving. So we at the UCHG would like to share our Happy memories from over the past year, and wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

See you all in 2010.

As the festive season kicks into full swing the gaming industry tries to tempt us with slimmer consoles and new fangled next generation games. This is all well and good, but as life accelerates to an unnatural speed around us, we at the UCHG  like to kick back and enjoy the simple gaming pleasures of our old and loyal friend

The ATARI 2600

This Behemoth of a gaming machine was released in 1977 and paved the way for gaming as we know it today! The 2600 brought arcade classics such as Space Invaders, Berserk and Defender into people’s homes! It is so mighty it has been likened to the front end of a Panzer Tank… or a Bread Bin.

The 2600 is a true gaming classic and, as legend has it, demand was so high Atari executives helped man the production lines in order to satisfy the public’s hunger for what was to become the Godfather of all console gaming.

It’s the simplicity of the 2600 that keeps us coming back for more. Too many modern games come complete with a 50 page manual and a learning curve steeper than Rebecca Adlingtons nose! An Atari 2600 game comes complete with a 10 page leaflet outlining the plot and an explanation for what the red button does, which is nearly always shoot, and if not, it’s almost certainly going to be jump. There are no tactics to study, special attacks to learn or even a map to look at. Just pure (at times not so pure) gaming goodness.

So if life starts to get too much for you this Christmas why not whip out your Atari 2600 and challenge your mates to a game of Battle Tanks? and for those of you with no mates. You can alway turn your 2600 controller into a dildo

Stay frosty!

This wintery time of year hasn’t cooled our spirits – but that’s mainly because we’ve been back down to HELL!

Yes, all that talk of Doom last week got us in the mood – so in this Big Talk we cover the whole series so far. We brought a camera in on this one too, so you can see for yourselves how these happen – and how much Strongbow is involved!

It was educational even for some of us too – it’s a pleasure to see Steve discuss his specialist subject…

And just a reminder – you can actually play Doom in your browser here: Doom Online

It was a sad day at the UCHG when we learned of the recent death of one Don Ivan Punchatz. Why? Because he made this:

That’s right – the unforgettable classic Doom box-art. Punchatz was a science fiction and fantasy artist who had illustrated in magazines including Heavy Metal, National Geographic, Playboy and Time; but it was his work for id Software that made his name, creating the Doom game package art and logo, including the nameless Doom marine.

Sadly, in 2009 Don Ivan Punchatz suffered a cardiac arrest – and died in hospital on the 22nd October, aged 73.

This news led us to reflect on the series as a whole, and what is possibly the best game ever made – Doom. Our very own Steve is an expert on the game, being the biggest Doom fan ever. In fact it’s rumoured that this is the only series he plays in his spare time, buying other games only as cover.

First released in 1993, Doom found its way onto nearly every system around at the time – we own the Jaguar, Gameboy Advance and PC versions. The number of copies sold of the original game is unknown; but within two years of release, it was estimated that it had already been played by over 10 million people – and that’s the equivalent of the whole of Belgium; or two Denmarks.

Focussing on the exploits of an unnamed space marine, each game in the series saw you fighting through hordes of demons and the undead to stay alive. There’s always some form of plot apparently, but really it’s always all about blasting them back to hell!

Doom brought with it so many innovations to gaming and the first-person-shooter – with only Wolfenstein coming before it – that it is to this day widely considered as one of the most pioneering series in the video game industry. Indeed it was so revolutionary that games from the mid-1990s boom of first-person shooters are often known simply as “Doom clones“.

If you’ve never played it, well, we think you’d better give it a go – forget your multi-core processors, pixel-shaders, and high-definition; and get back the roots of what real quality gaming is.

You can play an online version here; but we recommend you get on ebay and grab an original – after all, that’s what the UCHG is all about.

For more info, here’s a full article on Don Ivan Punchatz.

• Ross’s recent tribute to the Playstation Doom box art